St. Joseph the Carpenter — is he still building today?

Article and photos by Doug Bardwell

I just returned from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where St. Joseph is credited with building a miraculous stairway for the Loretto Chapel. Jesus’ stepfather may have passed away some 2,000 years ago, but there are hundreds (thousands?) of us who believe he may have come back in 1879 to complete this amazing feat of carpentry.

Some background

The Sisters of Loretto traveled west to set up educational opportunities for the primarily Mexicans and Indians who lived around Santa Fe in 1873. A block away, two French architects, Antoine Mouly and his son Projectus, had designed and were finishing the Cathedral of St. Francis. As they were finishing the large cathedral, Bishop Lamy suggested they also design a chapel for the nuns. They agreed to model the chapel after their favorite Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

It was a wonderful design in the Gothic Revival style, with a spire rising 60-feet toward the heavens. The sisters raised the funds for its construction, and work began in 1878. Unfortunately, during the construction, Antoine died suddenly, leaving Projectus to complete the project. By this point construction was coming to an end, and the only way workers could access the choir loft was with a straight ladder. A conventional stairway would have taken up too much space needed for seating.

Only a spiral staircase would do

The only answer was a circular staircase, and Antoine may have hoped a masonry one he saw in Europe could be done. Again, with a sad twist of fate, before Projectus could find a craftsman to build one, he suffered an illness and died also. That left the sisters with no way to access their choir loft, and the ladder was not something they felt comfortable with while wearing their long habits.

Legend has it that local craftspeople tried to build it of wood but didn’t have the skills or proper materials to complete a twenty-foot tall staircase that required two complete 360-degree turns. The sisters had almost given up hope, when they decided to pray a nine-day novena to St…